Constance Markievicz (1868–1927), born to the privileged Protestant upper class in Ireland, embraced suffrage before scandalously leaving for a bohemian life in London and then Paris. She would become known for her roles as politician and Irish revolutionary nationalist. Her husband, Casimir Dunin Markievicz (1874–1932), a painter, playwright, and theater director, was a Polish noble who would eventually join the Russian imperial army to fight on behalf of Polish freedom during World War I. Revolutionary Lives offers the first dual biography of these two prominent European activists and artists. Tracing the Markieviczes' entwined and impassioned trajectories, biographer Lauren Arrington sheds light on the avant-garde cultures of London, Paris, and Dublin, and the rise of anti-imperialism at the turn of the twentieth century. Drawing from new archival material, including previously untranslated newspaper articles, Arrington explores the interests and concerns of Europeans invested in suffrage, socialism, and nationhood. Unlike previous works, Arrington's book brings Casimir Markievicz into the foreground of the story and explains how his liberal imperialism and his wife's socialist republicanism arose from shared experiences, even as their politics remained distinct. Arrington also shows how Constance did not convert suddenly to Irish nationalism, but was gradually radicalized by the Irish Revival. Correcting previous depictions of Constance as hero or hysteric, Arrington presents her as a serious thinker influenced by political and cultural contemporaries. Revolutionary Lives places the exciting biographies of two uniquely creative and political individuals and spouses in the wider context of early twentieth-century European history.

From a leading scholar of the Middle East and North Africa comes a new way of thinking about the Arab Spring and the meaning of revolution. From the standpoint of revolutionary politics, the Arab Spring can seem like a wasted effort. In Tunisia, where the wave of protest began, as well as in Egypt and the Gulf, regime change never fully took hold. Yet if the Arab Spring failed to disrupt the structures of governments, the movement was transformative in farms, families, and factories, souks and schools. Seamlessly blending field research, on-the-ground interviews, and social theory, Asef Bayat shows how the practice of everyday life in Egypt and Tunisia was fundamentally altered by revolutionary activity. Women, young adults, the very poor, and members of the underground queer community can credit the Arab Spring with steps toward equality and freedom. There is also potential for further progress, as women’s rights in particular now occupy a firm place in public discourse, preventing retrenchment and ensuring that marginalized voices remain louder than in prerevolutionary days. In addition, the Arab Spring empowered workers: in Egypt alone, more than 700,000 farmers unionized during the years of protest. Labor activism brought about material improvements for a wide range of ordinary people and fostered new cultural and political norms that the forces of reaction cannot simply wish away. In Bayat’s telling, the Arab Spring emerges as a paradigmatic case of “refolution”—revolution that engenders reform rather than radical change. Both a detailed study and a moving appeal, Revolutionary Life identifies the social gains that were won through resistance.

This dual biography of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King upends longstanding preconceptions to transform our understanding of the twentieth century's most iconic African American leaders. To most Americans, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. represent contrasting ideals: self-defense vs. nonviolence, black power vs. civil rights, the sword vs. the shield. The struggle for black freedom is wrought with the same contrasts. While nonviolent direct action is remembered as an unassailable part of American democracy, the movement's militancy is either vilified or erased outright. In The Sword and the Shield, Peniel E. Joseph upends these misconceptions and reveals a nuanced portrait of two men who, despite markedly different backgrounds, inspired and pushed each other throughout their adult lives. This is a strikingly revisionist biography, not only of Malcolm and Martin, but also of the movement and era they came to define.

Accessible introduction to the life and times of one of the toweringfigures of the American Civil Rights movement.

The absorbing story of a "millionaire socialist" couple in the early years of the twentieth century.

Film critic and food writer Alissa Wilkinson sits down with a hypothetical table of smart, engaging, revolutionary women of the twentieth century to explore the ways food centered each woman's creative work. As we meet these multifaceted women, we learn how to live with courage, smarts, saltiness, and sometimes feasting--even in uncertain times.

Italians were the largest group of immigrants to the United States at the turn of the twentieth century, and hundreds of thousands led and participated in some of the period's most volatile labor strikes. Jennifer Guglielmo brings to life the Italian working-class women of New York and New Jersey who helped shape the vibrant radical political culture that expanded into the emerging industrial union movement. Tracing two generations of women who worked in the needle and textile trades, she explores the ways immigrant women and their American-born daughters drew on Italian traditions of protest to form new urban female networks of everyday resistance and political activism. She also shows how their commitment to revolutionary and transnational social movements diminished as they became white working-class Americans.